Lori Hacking Killed As She Slept?

A probable cause statement says Mark Hacking told a "reliable citizen witness" in the psychiatric ward that he killed his wife as she slept before throwing her body in a trash bin.

The statement, released Tuesday by the Salt Lake County Sheriff's Department, also says investigators found human blood on a knife in the bedroom of the couple's apartment and on their bed's headboard and a bedrail.

Blood found in the bedroom matched traces of blood found in Lori Hacking's car, according to the statement.

Lori Hacking, 27, an assistant stockbroker, has not been seen since late July 18. Mark Hacking, 28, reported her missing the following day, telling family, friends and police that she failed to return from a morning jog at a park near downtown.

Cracks soon emerged in her husband's timeline and overall credibility, and police later said it was likely Lori never made it to the park.

Hacking was arrested Monday on a charge of aggravated murder, but has not been formally charged. He is being held without bail.

From the day Lori Hacking disappeared, police never referred to her husband as anything other than a "person of interest" — even as the lies he told relatives unraveled and his psychological condition deteriorated.

But, the tape does more than put Mark Hacking out on the town in the middle of the night. Less than four hours earlier, he was at the same store buying sodas with Lori, according to store clerks.

Investigators believe Lori Hacking was killed in the couple's apartment and that her body is buried somewhere in 3,000 tons of trash at the county landfill. Searches using dogs in the last two weeks have not turned up the body. That effort was to resume Wednesday night, when the weather is cooler and after the dogs have had a chance to rest up from last week's searches.

Hacking was being held on one count of aggravated murder. Prosecutors have 72 hours to file formal charges, but they could ask for an extension, if necessary. He was being held without bail and is on a suicide watch.

The Salt Lake County district attorney's office said failure to find the body would not keep the case against Hacking from proceeding, though there are questions how they would show aggravating circumstances, such as killing for personal gain or to elude arrest, or carrying out the crime in an exceptionally heinous manner.

Lori Hacking had told friends that she was five weeks pregnant, but police said she had not confirmed a home pregnancy test by visiting a doctor. If her body is found and the pregnancy is confirmed, prosecutors could add an additional murder charge. That might satisfy the condition for aggravated circumstances.

On the morning that Hacking reported his wife had disappeared, police have said, he was buying a mattress even though he told friends and authorities he had been searching her jogging route.

Two days later, news organizations discovered that Hacking had lied about graduating from the University of Utah and lied about being accepted at a medical school in North Carolina, where the couple was to have moved within just days.

Mark Hacking was hospitalized after he was seen running around naked outside a motel where he had taken a room, hours after making an emotional appeal on television for help in searching for his wife.